Reversing the Heavenly Dipper! Chivu Explores the White Whale's Counterattack, Tang Long Teaches, the Disciple Becomes the Master!

Early that night, the news that Icardi and Ibrahimovic had been detained by police for fighting on the plane, seriously threatening flight safety, was like a bombshell, instantly making headlines across all media outlets!

In an instant, the traffic generated by this message surged like a tidal wave, completely overshadowing the popularity of Tang Long's White Whale Return.

<Shocking! Manchester United players get into a brawl on a plane!>

<What untold secrets lie behind the sudden internal strife on the way home from victory?>

The impact was extremely severe; the flight nearly suffered a catastrophic disaster!

<Victory cannot mask huge hidden dangers; Manchester United is mired in a dressing room crisis!>

Of all the vivid descriptions in the media, the Sun's fabrication is the most imbued with literary romanticism.

They claimed with great conviction that "it wasn't De Bruyne cuckolded Icardi, but Ibrahimovic; the two had a fierce argument on the plane over Wanda..."

When Tang Long saw the Sun's report, he frowned and exclaimed "Huh?" before sharing the link in a private chat group for Manchester City players.

Of all the vivid descriptions in the media, the Sun's fabrication is perhaps the most absurd and fantastical, displaying the most romantic and literary style.

They solemnly claimed that "it wasn't De Bruyne who cuckolded Icardi, but Ibrahimovic; the two had a fierce, almost out-of-control conflict on the plane over Wanda..."

[Ranocchia]:???

[Kolarov]: Poor Mauro, manipulated like a puppet by Wanda!

[Bonazzoli]: Haha, it's true! I was there when Ibrahimovic messed with Wanda, I witnessed the whole thing!

[Agüero]: Ibrahimovic would be interested in Wanda? Even if that woman were given to me for free, I'd be scared out of my wits. She'd scare me to death.

[Stones]: Who is Wanda? Is she so beautiful that Ibrahimovic and Icardi would fight over her?

"Ranocchia patted Stones on the head."

[Ranocchia]: Stones, you're still young, stop thinking about women and focus on playing football!

Thanks to Manchester United's strong public relations skills, Icardi and Ibrahimovic were released from the police station after only two hours.

However, given the serious nature of the incident, Manchester United has imposed a one-match ban on both players and withheld one week's salary.

The management also demanded that everyone in the Manchester United team keep quiet and not divulge a single word to the outside media, especially the Sun.

The other Manchester United players found the whole thing ridiculous and privately mocked Icardi, saying he must have been incredibly audacious to provoke Ibrahimovic. They claimed that if it weren't for four or five teammates desperately pulling Ibrahimovic back, Icardi would probably have been dead in mid-air.

However, De Bruyne completely ignored the matter.

The next day, at 7:30 in the morning, he rushed into the training field as if he had gone mad.

He got a bag of about ten soccer balls by himself, then aimed at the edge of the opposite penalty area, mimicking Tang Long's White Whale Return pass, and kept using the inside of his foot to rub the bottom of the ball.

Not only were the movements imitated from Tang Long's replay in the video, but even the ball's placement was exactly the same as where Tang Long passed the ball in the previous match against Monchengladbach.

De Bruyne possesses exceptional talent in passing, with a delicate touch and astonishingly precise footwork. Coupled with his passion for playing table tennis, he gradually grasped the essence of this technique, similar to a slice shot in table tennis, after passing the ball a dozen or so times.

However, De Bruyne made seventy or eighty passes in a row, but not a single one reached the level that Tang Long had shown!

Or the ball has some spin, but the spin isn't strong enough, and it just bounces slightly backward;

Alternatively, the ball might bounce back, increasing the force of the pass and causing it to bounce like a runaway horse into the penalty area before bouncing out again. However, this is already within the goalkeeper's easy control, making the pass meaningless.

By the end, my leg muscles were sore and weak, but I still couldn't get the hang of it.

De Bruyne was exhausted and sweating profusely. He thought to himself, "Why did Dom manage to achieve the same effect with just one easy kick as I could with seventy or eighty kicks? Is his talent really greater than mine? I don't believe it!"

After the regular training session that day, De Bruyne gave himself an extra hour of practice, practicing nothing but Tang Long's White Whale Return pass.

As his practice intensified, although his passing improved noticeably, he was still a long way from Tang Long's level.

De Bruyne sighed deeply, drove home, and couldn't even eat lunch.

"Kevin, don't be discouraged! There must be something you haven't mastered yet. Just practice more, and you can definitely do it!"

De Bruyne was unconvinced. He picked up his phone, logged into a fake account pretending to be Icardi, and then asked Chivu for advice.

After having lunch, Chivu was taking a nap in bed, snoring loudly, when his phone vibrated and woke him up.

He picked it up and saw that it was Icardi asking him how Tang Long had executed that pass in the match, saying that he had practiced it many times during training that day but hadn't quite grasped the technique.

Chivu carefully read the message sent by Icardi and couldn't help but feel a little surprised.

Based on the written description, he concluded that Icardi must have specifically practiced this pass, otherwise he wouldn't have raised his doubts based on certain details.

"This Mauro is pretty good. It seems he hasn't been affected by those off-field factors and is quite eager to learn."

However, during his playing career, although Chivu played midfield for Ajax and the Romania National Team, he never executed a ball with such a dramatic rebound.

He pondered for a moment, then sent a message to Icardi: "Mauro, this is a complicated issue, and I can't answer you right now. I'll ask Don in person at the training ground tomorrow, and then I'll give you an answer!"

De Bruyne immediately replied with a message: "Mr. Chivu, please don't tell Don that I asked, otherwise I'm afraid he won't want to tell you."

"Haha, okay, I know what to do."

After the chat ended, Chivu felt a mix of amusement and exasperation.

He thought to himself, "Mauro, with your current passing skills, you haven't even learned to walk yet, and you want to run?"

Let alone Mauro Icardi, even if Tang Long stood in front of your teammate De Bruyne and personally explained it to him in great detail, he might not be able to understand the intricacies!

After training the next day, Chivu pulled Tang Long aside and asked him about the White Whale Return pass.

In fact, it wasn't just De Bruyne was racking his brains over this; even Chivu himself was very curious about how such a ball could be played, since he had only ever seen it in tennis comics and had never witnessed it in a real football match.

Before training began, Chivu even came onto the field first and, recalling Tang Long's movements from the day's match, imitated a few of his kicks.

However, even a top-tier passing maestro De Bruyne couldn't achieve that, so how could Chivu possibly do it?

He also played midfield during his playing career, so his long passes are certainly not bad, but in terms of footwork alone, he is still far inferior to De Bruyne.

Moreover, De Bruyne, at the peak of his career, practiced seventy or eighty touches before he even touched the edge of ball control;

Having already retired, Chivu only practiced five or six passes, so naturally he couldn't possibly grasp the secrets of the White Whale's back pass.

"Don't say anything yet, let me demonstrate for you, and then you can point out my shortcomings." After saying this, Chivu took a few steps back and assumed a fighting stance.

Although Chivu is an assistant coach at Manchester City, he was born in 1980 and is only in his early 30s. He is not much older than many active players. In addition, he is very familiar with Tang Long and they are like mentor and friend. Chivu does not feel ashamed to have Tang Long point out his technical shortcomings.

After seeing Chivu kick, Tang Long knew he couldn't hide it from Chivu anymore.

Tang Long rarely watched tennis matches or read tennis comics, and he had only vaguely heard of the name "White Whale Return".

But he does watch table tennis.

Once, I saw a professional table tennis player use a slice shot; the spinning ball bounced off the table and its trajectory was unpredictable. I was suddenly struck by a chill and thought:

"If you replace the ping-pong ball with a soccer ball, and the table becomes a soccer field, the principle should still apply."

Then Tang Long entered the AI Cloud Training Ground.

After watching numerous videos of world-class passing masters and their techniques for using curved shots, Tang Long created models in the Cloud Training ground, depicting a striker and a goalkeeper, and repeatedly practiced passing skills.

The AI Cloud Training Ground used big data to analyze Tang Long's body posture and the trajectory of the ball after it was passed, continuously correcting and improving it, and finally gave a solution that was most conducive to kicking the "White Whale Return", which Tang Long adopted.

Tang Long said, "Mr. Chivu, you've figured out the principle behind it. Actually, the key to this pass lies in a detail that few people pay attention to. To sum it up in one sentence, it's the angle of the ankle's inward rotation and the rhythm of the lower leg's swing at the moment of contact with the ball."

"It's that simple?" Chivu, somewhat puzzled. He had expected it to be an extremely complex technique.

"It seems simple, but it's actually very difficult to master," Tang Long explained. "When players pass the ball, they focus more on power and direction, while neglecting the subtle movements at the moment of contact."

"The instant I touch the ball, my ankle quickly curls inward at an angle about 15 degrees greater than a normal pass. This is the key to generating strong backspin on the ball."

"At the same time, the swing of the lower leg is not an instantaneous exertion, but rather a slow first and then rapid motion, like drawing a bow and shooting an arrow—first building up momentum, then releasing force suddenly. In this way, the ball can fly out with just the right amount of backspin and power."

"But what does that have to do with the ball's rebound?" Chivu began with a leading question.

Tang Long said, "This involves a physical principle—the intricate combination of the Magnus effect and ground friction."

He further explained that due to the complex rotation of the football in the air, the Magnus effect interacts with the ground friction at the moment it lands.

With a special spin and ball-touching technique, the friction force is cleverly transformed into an upward and backward force at the moment of contact with the ground after the football lands. This force makes the football bounce back dramatically, as if pushed by an invisible hand, and the direction and force of the bounce are under the player's control.

"Furthermore, the point of contact with the ball is also very important. It should be located slightly off-center from the bottom of the ball, with a deviation of no more than one centimeter. This is how you find a balance between height and spin."

Chivu scratched his head and began to digest Tang Long's explanation.

Ankle inward rotation, lower leg swing rhythm, point of contact with the ball...

Bang!

Chivu launched a long pass!

After he pulled his foot back from touching the ball, he looked up and stared intently at the ball's trajectory in the air, trying to see clearly what it would look like after it landed.

(One more chapter will be released around 1 PM)